Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/914

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A Chinese Biographical Dictionary
895


upon him in the eyening , with the usaal present of money to a superior. ^^Sorely/* said Yang Chdn, ^'though your old friend has not forgotten you, you haye forgotten your old friend.** "It is dark/* replied Wang, "and no one will know.'* "Not know?** cried Yang Chdn; "why, Heaven will know, Earth will know, yon will know, and I shall koow.** And from that circumstance the ancestral hall of the Yang family is to this day called the Hall of the Four Knows. In A.D. 120 he was placed at the head of the Civil Office. In 121 the Empress ^ Tdng died, and his influence began to wane. The fostermother, ^ ^ Wang Shdng by name, of the Emperor An Ti, and her licentious daughter '^j^ ^ Po Jung, indulged in such unseemly behaviour that Yang ChSn felt himself compelled to interfere, thereby incurring the bitter hatred of the palace eunuchs. This feeling was intensified by a memorial from Yang ChSn, presented in consequence of an earthquake, which of course he regarded as a Divine warning. The climax was reached when a former disciple of Yang Chdn submitted an open condemnation of the doings at Court. He was at once thrown into prison, and Yang Ch6n, who tried to save him, was himself deprived of his seals of office and told to return to his provincial post. He went only as far as the little kiosque to the west of the city, known as Evening Rays, and there he drank off a cup of poison and brought his career to a close. He would receive no bribes. He laid up no store for his descendants. When a friend remonstrated with him on leaving nothing to his sons and grandsons, he replied, "If posterity shall speak of me as an incorrupt official, will that be nothing?**

Tang Ch'eng ^ J^ (T. ^ ;^ ). 2nd ceut. B.C. A Governor of 2863 Tao-cbou in Hunan under the Emperor Wu Ti of the Han dynasty. The Emperor having a fancy for a certain race of dwarfs found in the Tao-chou region, several hundredsof their youths were required every year as tribute. Parents and children were thus separated and